December 7, 1941

On a radio we heard the news. Pearl Harbor had been attacked. I knew it was serious from the looks on the  faces of my mom and dad. I was ten.

The picture is of a Zenith radio we owned but I'm not sure if it is pre-1941.
The earliest radio I remember was a tall thing on four legs, very fancy woodwork and a bench in front to sit on while you "tuned in" a station. There were two hinged doors that closed when you weren't using it, making it look like a nice cabinet. One of our cousins later took the innards out of theirs and made a lovely liquor cabinet.

This particular model had a toggle switch on the back that said Radio/TV. The man who delivered it said when television became available, all we would have to do is buy a screen to place on top and we'd be ready to watch. I think he was misinformed.
There are fewer of us left who remember that day and Monday at school we listened to President Roosevelt give his speech. We had small radios in each room at Roosevelt Grade School - named after Teddy - not FDR.
By the way, winning World War II and defeating the Axis powers took four years. At the beginning we were training soldiers with broom sticks until rifles were made available.

The title of this blog is quite appropriate - I do ramble on...

Later:  I did look at the text to the left of the photo which was in the magazine Reminisce. The woman who sent the picture in says her folks bought the radio in 1939 in order to have short wave. So it is possible that we had this radio in 1941.